The two companies will continue to trade as separate entities, but will be able to draw on each other's technical experience.

A company statement said: "Absolute Vision will continue to promote its product range autonomously to all its existing customer base and market areas, including general marking equipment manufacturers.

"In the same way, Pryor will continue to supply complete solutions for turnkey marking and reading applications."

John Tissiman, managing director of Edward Pryor & Son, said: "The acquisition of Absolute Vision Ltd, with their expertise in innovative software and vision solutions, will enable us to offer total solutions for product marking, coding, verification and reading."

Richard Laight, co-founder of Absolute Vision, said: "We believe this union will enable our company to exploit all potential growth opportunities for our product range, particularly in international markets."